I bought two Smart TVs on Wednesday!

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    It all started when my mother in law (MIL) began watching The Crown at my sister in law's house, as she stays there on weekends and wanted to carry on watching when she got home. At first I recommended a Chromecast, but she wasn't very happy controlling it with her phone, which I had to agree with. I then explained what a Smart TV does, in spite of never having used one myself and she was completely sold. The only thing we needed to agree on was the size as she thought 32" was perhaps a little small. She already has a 32" LCD non-smart for the living room, so I suggested that if she were to buy a new one, it should be a little bigger as she wanted it for her bedroom, as many people here do.

    A few weeks passed and on Tuesday a lady came for a new laptop set up which she'd bought in 50 credit card payments with a certain bank and I told Adri about this, who then relayed the info to her mum. Next day we zoomed over to Rodo at Unicenter and came away with a 43" Phillips Smart TV for $11,000 at 50 payments of $220, interest free.




    Setting it up was a breeze and I particularly liked the remote with a qwerty keyboard on the back. Then I set her up with Netflix, sharing our account, all her favourite TV channels and she was happy as Larry when I left, which is always a heart warming feeling especially since she's 82 and lost her husband last year.

    Anyway, when I got back home, the cogs began to turn and Adri and me agreed that, with inflation and the Dollar going the way they are, we ought to take a similar deal. So, two hours after buying the Phillips for MIL, I was back at Unicenter eyeing up an LG 43" UHD/4k Smart TV, gobsmacked at the picture quality and the Magic Remote which uses an on screen pointer. Within less than ten minutes I was walking out of Unicenter with another TV under my arm, this time at $15,000 and $290 per month, interest free. Everyone more or less agrees that that the monthly payments will be pretty insignificant this time next year, for the reasons stated above, but I'm still trying to figure out how the stores/banks handles these arrangements.





    The size of the TV is just right; any larger and it wouldn't have fitted where we wanted it. In fact, I had to put a slab of glass on the TV cabinet because of the width.

    I had been holding out against a Smart TV for ages, using the PC underneath, but I can now see how remarkable these gadgets are now. The picture is stunning and with more and more UHD content on Netflix becoming available, I'm delighted with it as the detail is incredible.

    Later,I mentioned it to my daughter, who then told me she has a 58" Samsung UHD, which kind of floored me.

    :bananadance:

    I’m supposed to be the in-house tech expert, but my wife is usually way ahead of me because she actively searches out The Latest Thing. Our Texas house is large: we get lots of guests, and we have a true theater room (stepped floor, plush reclining seats, and a 75-inch Sony smart TV). The guest bedrooms, master bedroom, and wife’s office have TVs, all smart. In our BsAs home there are three smart TVs too, so yeah, I think I know a bit about them.


    As you say, they are amazing. With today’s plethora of streaming services, they are fast becoming necessities for those of us who are now too spoiled to even consider watching things that are only available at certain times with commercials.


    The setups can seem fiddly at first, but after one or two things become easier. And if your shiny new box doesn’t support something you want, you can always hang a Roku or Amazon Fire Stick on an open HDMI port, and away you go.


    The future has arrived.

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    Okay Sr Guru, I've a couple of questions for you.

    MIL's TV is set up with Cablevision HD connected through an HDMI cable and when I set the TV up for her, I went to auto tuning and it found all the channels through HDMI, which means she can use the remote to now change TV channels. When i did the same on ours which alos has Cablevision HD. it couldn't find any channels :scratchead:


    I have to say that I prefer Netflix in a browser because those show previews are incredibly annoying in the TV app and what's worse, you can't turn the preview sound off, like you can in the browser. I've read that this is a common complaint.


    I loved the set up by the way. It's one of the most exciting parts.


    Edit:

    Found this interesting article.

    https://www.reviewgeek.com/683…-streaming-stick-instead/

    Can’t help with the channel control issue because every attempt I’ve ever made at unifying all control in one remote has ended badly. I resign myself to having a caddy full of controllers handy.


    Yes, I do use sound bars and I like them (currently have three). I was once an extremely demanding audiophile (Dual turntable with Shure 0.5 mm stylus, Harmon-Kardon 120-W amp, AR3-a speakers, etc.). Over the years my standards have coalesced to “sounds okay.” Yet it still has to truly sound okay. A good sound bar does, and if you like action movies a lot, then a sound bar with a subwoofer is a good choice. Personally, if it accurately plays my music I don’t need realistic compacting metal sounds when cars crash or interstellar explosions during alien invasions.

    Quote from Splinter

    I suppose it's fair to say that TV speakers aren't the best. In fact the other night I was watching Gladiator on Netflix and the dialogue wasn't clear at all, with all the other sounds being very much louder.

    I'll be buying a soundbar during our trip to the UK in August then :)

    Oh, yes, I should have said that the bars are always a significant upgrade from the TV speakers.

    Sound Bar vs. Sound Base:

    By experience, I have discovered Sound Bars are best in an environment that is a 'house" - not an apartment or where you have neighbors

    to the left, right, up, OR down from you.


    A Sound Base on the other hand is much better for those environments where you might want to consider your "neighbors".

    The sound is very good; and there is a "mute" button for turning off the sound.


    The best product of this type is called ZVOX. There are several "models" to choose from - select the "upper end" for best results and features.

    This is what I presently have.


    The "downside"? Depending on which model you purchase of ZBOX, a Sound Base can cost as much as a good UHD Smart TV !


    However, if you really want to go "all out" - damn the expense - then go with individual speakers:

    Main Right and Left; Center; Side Speakers - Left and Right; and the Woofer.

    All these speakers can be purchased as wireless speakers. Advanced technology has now made Wireless Speakers not only possible but

    quite preferable in certain situations - e.g., no unsightly and cumbersome wires to try and figure how to route them and to hide them from view.


    The "downside"? Can be EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE ! And they absolutely require a "high end" AMPLIFIER.


    DJ

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    In the end I bought an LG 300w sound bar with woofer and the sound is stunning. I was going to get a Sony 80w or a Philips 120w, but since it has more power and is the same make as the telly (LG) making syncing a little easier, I went for it. Besides, the high-end sound bars are ludicrously expensive here CruiseJunki

    Just need to adjust the lip sync and we're done!





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    Smart TV prices have gone down here, in USD value. I have been fancying to upgrade our TV sets but the pain of selling the old ones (always seem to attract the wrong crowd of buyers) has made me desist.


    We have a 42" Philips (not smart) about ten years old, which we inherited, and a 32" smart Philips, which came with the house.


    With the bigger TV, we had to plug an Apple TV so that we can watch Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime. We have Telecentro and their box comes with a remote which has a button for Netflix. Apparently, if you subscribe to one of their TV packages you get direct access to Netflix with their offer, so you can simply push the white and red button that reads Netflix on the Telecentro remote.


    We don't need TV service anymore, but every time we tried to call it to cancel they offered more free months. I think we are up to 3 or 4 months now. Anyway, we have moved the TV on the other side of the room where there is no TV cable outlet, so... The Cablevision 'smart' box was quite stiff at times, so that the Netflix button sometimes didn't work and the Apple TV was faster anyway. The Apple TV runs smoothly and recently Amazon Prime appeared, but it runs slower than Netflix (the browsing, the streaming is the same).


    With the smaller smart TV we have direct access to Netflix but not to Amazon Prime. Our TV model runs on a proprietary Philips OS and they haven't made an Amazon Prime app yet. Newer models run on Android and you can install any kind of app. SO if I want Amazon Prime I need to buy Amazon Fire, but it doesn't carry YouTube because it is owned by their competitor Google. Chromecast by Google carries YouTube, but I wonder if they carry Amazon Prime.


    Anyway, the smaller Philips sometimes crashes, but I think it is because the WiFi coverage upstairs is not that good.

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    It was a long road for us to get to a Smart TV, which probably deserves an article in itself.

    Anyway, now that we have one, I've put my custom built AMD based PC up for sale and now that we only use Cablevision for news and sport, we are surely paying over the odds, but nowadays you have to have both TV and Internet in the same package. I'll need to double check that though.

    We're paying around $2000 per month for 50Mb and a standard Cablevision HD pack.

    If I could find a way to go Internet only, I surely would.

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    Quote from Splinter

    If I could find a way to go Internet only, I surely would.

    In San Isidro we had Cablevisión Internet only. It was the only reliable service out there (Arnet was choked). Never had TV before moving to Capital. Our place was a tourist rental before and so there was the full Telecentro package with CNN and BBC, but we don't watch TV and so we will cancel the TV service.

    Good choice, Splinter!

    LG is an excellent brand!

    The best Smart Phone I ever had was an LG.

    And my HD TV is LG.


    With two years of watching regular broadcasts, movies, and other media stuff on the LG ... i would never consider anything

    other than LG.


    BTW: I purchased it from Costco ....... go Costco!


    DJ

    Did they give you some free ice cream as a bonus?

    Quote from EJLarson

    Did they give you some free ice cream as a bonus?

    Nah ....... nice thought though! ^^

    The Costco Warehouse where I live gave out FREE Muffins (cut into small pieces), and coffee for about the first 20 - 30 minutes of opening each day -

    OR until "supplies" were gone.


    But that practice was eliminated quite sometime ago.:(

    There are several reasons no doubt for stopping those "goodie" give-a-ways!;)

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    I have our LG 32" LCD (2010) on Mercadolibre, but it's awash with used TVs at the moment.

    Anyway, I decided to pen a few words about it all:

    The Long Road To A Smart TV

    DCT readers are in for a treat! I enjoyed the trip down memory lane, with your early tv history. My Dad taught electronics in the US Navy during WWII, and remained fascinated with the evolution of electronic devices, from my parents' first B&W tv in 1954, through a succession of ever smaller portable versions and ever-larger color versions through the 1960's and '70's. When we gave him his first Apple Computer in 1981, he was over the moon.


    He would have loved smart tv's and would have thoroughly enjoyed your article.